Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, a new weekly discussion that searches for the truth about psychiatric prescription drugs and mental health care worldwide.

This podcast is part of Mad in America’s mission to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care. We believe that the current drug-based paradigm of care has failed our society and that scientific research, as well as the lived experience of those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, calls for profound change.

On the podcast over the coming weeks, we will have interviews with experts and those with lived experience of the psychiatric system.

Thank you for joining us as we discuss the many issues around rethinking psychiatric care around the world.

Episode 30 Holly Higgins talks about her own experiences with psychiatric drugs and withdrawal and how she became a nutritional therapy practitioner and healed her depression and anxiety with real food

This week, we talk to
Holly Higgins. Holly shares her own experiences of
the psychiatric system and psychiatric drugs, how she approached
withdrawal from the drugs and talks about how she became a
nutritional therapy practitioner. Holly now supports others in
managing their mental health using nutrition and her excellent
website Pills to Paleo provides a wide range of helpful resources
for those that want to improve their mental health without
resorting to psychiatric drugs.

In this episode we
discuss:

Holly's difficult childhood
experiences that led to low mood and anxiety issues

How, at 25, Holly experienced a
breaking point leading to intense anxiety and experiencing
irrational thoughts and panic attacks

That between the therapist, a
social worker and a psychiatrist, Holly was diagnosed with 10
different mood disorders and medicated with psychiatric
drugs

How Holly was told medication
would be a 'life jacket' and that she would need to take the drugs
for the rest of her life

That Holly spent the most time
on Zoloft, Lamictal and Xanax, an SSRI antidepressant, a mood
stabiliser and a Benzodiazepine

How Holly felt excited because
she believed that the drugs would help her out of a very bad place
and they would treat her diagnosed mood disorders

That Holly bought into the idea
that she was 'broken and that her brain chemistry was out of
balance

How the medical professionals
downplayed adverse effects and that Holly feels that there was no
informed consent because she was given so little information about
the drugs

That Holly's treatment journey
felt like a rollercoaster in that every time the drugs stopped
working, the psychiatrist responded by increasing the dosage or
adding another medication

How that combination of drugs,
taken at high dosages made Holly feel very unwell, her mood
flatlining and leading to weight gain and losing her libido, which
in turn affected her self confidence and her sense of
self

That, after 18 months of the
drug treatment, Holly realised that she needed to get off the drugs
and she started to do more internet research although it was the
early days and there wasn't very information available at the
time

that Holly's Psychiatrist was
supportive of Holly reducing her drugs but her goal seemed to be
lowering doses rather than stopping completely

That even a 12.5mg reduction of
the Zoloft caused a strong reaction leading to vomiting, nausea,
shaking, cold sweats, dizziness, headaches and
irritability

That Holly managed to find an
integrative Psychiatrist who agreed to help Holly taper off her
medications

How Holly managed to find help
from the books The Antidepressant Solution by Joseph Glenmullen and
Will Hall's Harm reduction guide to coming off psychiatric
drugs

That Holly started to taper by
the Prozac bridging method, switching to Prozac helps because it is
more slowly eliminated from the body which reduces withdrawal
effects

That even that taper was still
too fast and Holly's Psychiatrist wasn't keen to help her find a
compounding pharmacy or eager to titrate down in smaller
doses

That Holly ended up coming off
everything within two months, leading to dizziness, extreme
fatigue, headaches, vomiting and leading to substantial time away
from work

How Holly experienced a return
of depressive symptoms but it was a withdrawal effect

That Holly felt that she started
to stabilise after another month or so and realised that she needed
to lose the excess weight, trying several different diets but with
limited success

How Holly came across the diet,
the Whole 30, a version of the Paelo diet which was radically
different to anything else that she had tried

The diet required Holly to
eliminate all grains, all dairy, all soy, all legumes, all refined
sugars and oils and focus on humanely raised animal protein,
vegetables, frats, healthy fast and nuts and seeds

That after a month, Holly
started to see some weight loss and also felt her mood lifting so
she continued with the diet leading to more weight loss and
improvement in her mood

How Holly came to realise the
significant connection between nutrition and mental health and that
she felt angry because medical professionals had not once talked
about nutrients and their impact on her wellbeing

That Holly went on to study
Nutritional Therapy, becoming a certified practitioner and also
using her own lived experience, now specialising in nutrition for
mental health

That nutritional changes can
support the tapering process and reduce withdrawal effects because
they eliminate the most common inflammatory foods such as gluten,
sugar and refined oils

That the cytokine model of
depression shows the major contribution of chronic inflammation to
depression and other mental health problems and that if you can
reduce that inflammation you can improve your mental health without
drugs

That lowering inflammation can
also heal the gut and that a Paleo diet can also stabilise your
blood sugar

That Dr. Kelly Brogan calls
blood sugar imbalances the 'great psychiatric pretender' and that
people who get their blood sugar under control, also get their mood
under control

That a Paleo eating plan
provides more bioavailable vitamins and minerals than you can get
from processed foods containing synthetic vitamins

That if people can eat this way
for several months, it can provide a stable foundation for
commencing a taper from psychiatric drugs

Holly's time spent looking for
resources to help her and how that led to creating her own
comprehensive resource to help others: Pills to Paleo

How Holly provides one on one
support to help people improve their mental health utilising
nutritional approaches

How Holly can use her lived
experience to help and support others who feel judged by the
medical profession

That people shouldn't attach
their identity to their diagnosis because it's limiting: 'you are
not your diagnosis'

About the Podcast

Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, a new weekly discussion that searches for the truth about psychiatric prescription drugs and mental health care worldwide.
This podcast is part of Mad in America’s mission to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care and mental health. We believe that the current drug-based paradigm of care has failed our society and that scientific research, as well as the lived experience of those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, calls for profound change.
On the podcast over the coming weeks, we will have interviews with experts and those with lived experience of the psychiatric system. Thank you for joining us as we discuss the many issues around rethinking mental health around the world.
For more information visit madinamerica.com
To contact us email podcasts@madinamerica.com